Security News
The world's biggest social media companies may have to put more of a priority on security now that a New York state financial watchdog is calling for the creation of a designated regulator tasked with monitoring their cyber defense. The New York State Department of Financial Services made the determination in a lengthy report on the Twitter hack in July after the Justice Department said two teenagers and a 22-year-old took over more than 100 prominent Twitter accounts, including the accounts of former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Irish privacy regulators have opened two investigations into Instagram over the social media site's handling of young people's personal data. Data scientist David Stier said last year that his analysis found users, including those under 18, who switched their account types to business accounts also had their contact information displayed on their profile.
SHI International and Regulator Group have made a strategic investment in mLogica, to accelerate the development of digital transformation technologies and cloud services offered by mLogica and SHI. Under the terms of the strategic agreement, SHI and mLogica will go-to-market together to help their customers migrate legacy databases, applications and platforms to the Cloud, embrace the benefits of Big Data analytics, and optimize the performance of their IT infrastructure, including databases and applications, with a full stack managed services program. "Over the last five years, SHI has invested aggressively to develop a range of professional and managed services capabilities, and we've seen revenue grow 54% in the past year," said Thai Lee, President and CEO of SHI. "This clear evolution of the SHI brand better positions us as a services delivery partner to help customers meet infrastructure and cloud goals. The partnership with mLogica further strengthens that portfolio of services and gives SHI the ability to meet a broader set of customer needs as they migrate away from legacy infrastructure, make their data work harder and smarter, and continually optimize their IT environment."
European Union privacy regulators are wrangling over the penalty Ireland's data privacy watchdog was set to issue Twitter for a data breach, pushing back the case's long awaited conclusion under the bloc's tough new data privacy rules. The Irish Data Privacy Commission was expected to issue its decision in the Twitter case, which would be its first involving a U.S. technology company since the new privacy law, known as GDPR, took effect in 2018, allowing for hefty fines.
In an open letter this week, six data protection and privacy regulators from around the world have asked video teleconferencing organizations to focus on security and privacy-by-design. The regulatory community, which is responsible for ensuring the privacy of individuals worldwide, is concerned that the increased use of video conferencing solutions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the risks associated with the handling of personal information by VTC companies, and has created additional risks as well.
US regulators moved to impose fines Friday against the nation's four major wireless carriers for selling location data of customers without their consent. The wireless firms were accused of having disclosed mobile network user location data to a third party without authorization from customers, the FCC said.
Britain's Financial Conduct Authority on Tuesday admitted to a data breach, in an embarrassing revelation for the regulator and its boss, who shortly takes over at the Bank of England. The FCA said it had mistakenly published the details of around 1,600 consumers who had complained about the regulator, which is tasked with overseeing the conduct of Britain's key financial sector, including any data breaches by banks for example.
Facebook and its Irish data regulator gave conflicting signals Thursday about what caused the tech giant to postpone the European launch of its vaunted dating app. The regulator said Facebook only informed it about the new product's launch on February 3.
Facebook has delayed the rollout of its new dating feature in Europe, following officers from the Irish data regulator having popped by to ask why Facebook hadn't checked in about it earlier or provided the necessary data privacy paperwork. The Irish Data Protection Commission said on Wednesday that Facebook Ireland hadn't bothered to contact the DPC about its intention to roll out the new dating feature in the EU until Monday, 3 February.
Canada's privacy commissioner is taking Facebook to court to try to force the social network to make changes to its privacy practices. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has filed an application asking a federal court to declare that Facebook violated the country's privacy law over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.